Your Vision Goes Here
New life for my Canon 5D mark ii!
I just bought the “cinema” picture profile for $19 from http://www.cineplus.ch/
Wanted to hit the city and shoot something gritty after seeing what others had already done with the profile.
After a bit of brainstorming, the idea for an abstract movie trailer emerged and thus the camera test turned movie trailer was born.
Special thanks to friend and actor Heath Heine for helping a guy out with some camera tests…
James Drake is a Colorado DP living in Denver, Colorado and shooting beyond. He’s shot for broadcast television, short and feature films, commercials, and more.
James owns a Red Epic package, a Sony EX1R, Canon DSLRs, and various other cameras and is familiar with many more.
To see a list of what James has been working on recently, click here.
A few months back I wrote a few blogs on why the Canon 5D mk3 was worth waiting for…
Well it looks like we may have another DSLR coming that may be able to fill that role. Canon will likely announce a 5Dmk3 soon, but in the meantime, they announced the 1D X.
According to Canon Rumors, it looks like the camera has dual DIGIC V processors and Canon even mentions “Advanced video capabilities”.
Camera will arrive in March….
Here. We. Go.
More details to come as they become available (the real details)!
Inspired by the other large shootout of high end expensive cameras, my buddy Kyle Bush and I decided it was time to do some real world head-to-head with cameras from the streets.
We grabbed cameras we had access to and took them out. We attempted to be as scientific as possible, but there are quirks. Lots of quirks. For example:
Times like these make it awfully difficult to sleep at night…
James Drake Films is proud to offer the Red Epic-M camera system. This camera is an unbeatable tool to craft and create your vision at the highest quality.
Simply put, the Epic captures 14 megapixel frames in raw format. Much like shooting your [favorite brand] DSLR, but in video form. And in high speed. The Epic can shoot 96 FPS at full 5K quality or a staggering 300 FPS at 2K quality.
It’s small and can be configured to lightweight setups, has 13.5 stops of latitude in regular shooting (up to 18 in HDR), and has the incredible REDCODE compression technology that makes shooting RAW video feasible. The Epic is the most advanced camera system in the world (in my opinion).
Better yet, Red Digital Cinema is famous for improving the functionality of their cameras over time. With their previous camera, the Red One, it took a while to mature but the camera now, with many free upgrades, is a workhorse around the globe on commercial, narrative, and documentary gigs. I’m excited to see what new developments come to the Epic over the next few months!
This camera looks REALLY good out of the box (with a touch of minor color correction for contrast). Red has developed “redcolor2″ and “redgamma2″ as a color/gamma combination that looks fantastic. Unlike the DSLR cameras (which I still love for other reasons), the Epic has UNREAL detail in the shadows and rolls off the highlights brilliantly. I can’t say enough about the image quality. A very famous Hollywood DP just recently said the Epic captured “the best images he’s ever shot”.
Just a few years ago, it would take a large crew and a ton of gear to achieve quality at this level. We can now go out and shoot the BEST of the best with a camera system that fits on the back of a sedan.
Let’s go shoot something brilliant. In the meantime, here’s a slow motion dog video (there’s a tradition of shooting your family with these Red cameras…):
The Red Epic camera is available for rent at 5kinsight.com
Save Our Youth is a mentorship organization based out of Denver Colorado. They do amazing work.
This has been one of my favorite projects… EVER. Working with Jorge (the star) has been a real treat. He was brave and shared his story so that others may be interested in helping kids in similar situations.
From their website, saveouryouth.org
Save Our Youth transforms the lives of at-risk youth through mentor relationships providing the skills for success in educational, emotional, and spiritual development.
Music:
“Due Acque Part 01″
Live Archive Vol 2 © 7/3/2009
and
“Cowell Piano”
Cowell Theater CD 1 © 7/25/2009
by Robert Rich, BMI
Info at http://robertrich.com/
James Drake Films, Denver Video Production
http://www.jdfnet.com
Shot over 2 months, I forced myself to occaisionally break away from the busy daily schedules and find inspiration in the incredible morphing shapes above.
Variation of wind speed, color, types of clouds, altitude, weather, and time of day make shooting clouds, a seemingly flat subject, fascinating. On the tech side, choosing the proper speed, anticipating cloud movement, and finding the perfect vantage point complicate what seems to be a simple shoot.
The video doesn’t quite do justice to the amazing Colorado skies.
Shot on the Sony EX1R
Music: Death Cab for Cutie, Brothers on a Hotel Bed
HDV had its time and place. For documentary work, there’s really no media that gives you the sense of security like tape. You walk off set with real, touchable pieces of plastic knowing that your footage exists in a physical piece of plastic. Solid state cameras remove that reassurance and you instead marvel that your days, weeks, or months of shooting only exist on a hard drive…which could fail or be formatted at a moment’s notice.
However HDV has it’s well-documented flaws. The camera heads have to constantly be cleaned, tape cameras have a (relatively) large number of moving parts which means more potential problems (had tape transport jams twice on a shoot once), and HDV itself was… well, 4:2:0 DV bitrate in HD. Ouch. Still, videographers everywhere made good use of HDV. I remember reading that Planet Earth was utilizing HDV… if it’s good enough for those guys, what do I know??! (granted they were using it for slow moving shots)
I digress. The one piece of the HDV workflow that always bugged me was “capturing”. Several years ago, I worked as a technical assistant at a web/video company. Part of my job was to log and transfer countless hours of DV/HDV tape into the computer. I have no problem with log and transfer. Editors should know their footage well. What bugged me was the play>pause>reverse a few seconds>play>pause>reverse a few frames>play>capture sequence. Once footage was loaded into an NLE, in and out points were easy and instant… but setting 20 in/out points on tape in capture seemed to turn a 60 minute tape into a 90 minute capture. Though I was paid hourly for the work, I often thought to myself… “there has to be a better way”.
Funny enough, when starting my business, I started with an HDV camera. Recently, it came time for an upgrade (aside from the DSLR revolution). Weighing my options carefully, I choose the Sony EX1R as my solid state camera system, which uses the XDCAM codec.
From a workflow perspective the XDCAM codec is great for several reasons:
1) It’s a mere 35mbps in camera, with the option to record 10 bit to an external recording, allowing fairly long recording times on manageable media (16, 32 GB cards) as well as higher end codecs for professional applications.
2) The XDCAM codec is supported by Avid, Adobe, and FCP so it fits into many different types of workflows and can go from Mac to PC easily.
3) The cards are hot swappable in camera so you can constantly dump and shoot.
4) Timelapse work is a breeze with the single-frame interval recording feature
5) Pro audio in, no need to sync second system audio
6) Each time you start/stop recording, a new file is created. A new system of log and transfer.
I’ll often pair the EX1 with a Canon 5D/7D, maintaining the tapeless workflow (though the DSLRs do add complication in post).
My goal with the new tapeless workflow is to keep it simple with as little obstruction as possible.
Record -> Transfer -> Log -> Edit -> Export
Thoughts?
Short piece shot and edited for the good people at Suss Buick GMC The video will be showcased on their website (though I think they’re still working on the new updated version)
We shot the project over 2 days in a variety of locations around Denver.
James Drake Films, Denver Video Production
Time to beat the dead horse for the last time. Every camera that will be released from here on out is just icing on the cake for cinematographers. Read on…
Part One of the 2011 Zacuto Shootout will be posted on Wednesday June 15. After reading this article I came to consciously realize what I’ve subconsciously been thinking for some time: We’ve arrived at cinematic democracy.
Cinematic Democracy: [sin-uh-mat-ik dih-mok-ruh-see] noun Easy access shared by everyone to create filmic looking images.
It’s not the F3, it’s not the AF100 or the FS100, Epic, Alexa, Genesis, F65 that have got us here.
It’s the good ol’ Canon DSLR cameras.
Let’s address the white elephant: there’s a line of thinking on the internet that many subscribe to (I often find myself in this thought process) that videos will look better and better over time and that “as soon as X camera comes out, I’ll REALLY be able to make some quality images”. Not everyone totally buys that idea, but at the same time…we do. We’re constantly striving striving for more bits, more resolution, more latitude, etc. Vincent Laforet had an impressive post that demonstrated what the high-resolution Red Epic-M can do in a single still frame while shooting 96 frames per second.
Cool. Awesome. Additional positive adjectives. If you’re going to be portraying your film on a 72 foot high IMAX screen, by all means, capture in 5K. But the majority of video projects aren’t backed by studios. They’re on your back and mine, with clients, friends, and subscribers waiting for delivery.
The DSLRs aren’t perfect. Any camera forum will quickly orient to aliasing, moire, rolling shutter, and so on.
But here’s the deal….
THE AUDIENCE DOESN’T CARE!
Hundreds of my likes on Vimeo are films shot on DSLR.
Who can forget the first time they watched “Reverie?”
Or seeing Tom Lowe’s inspiring timelapse work
Lena Dunham won for best feature film at SXSW with a film shot on 7D.
Philip Bloom rocked our world showing us that the T2i was a true contender
Gale Tattersall created a huge stir when he used the 5Dmk2 on the finale of House.
Shane Hurlbut just recently sold “Act of Valor” for a minimum distribution deal of $13 million. Shot. On. DSLR.
A huge vault of films that are good, engaging, and impactful have been shot in totality on DSLR. And the number is growing.
If you control your images, the cameras look amazing. You can get in for $800. The DSLRs may be a “transition” camera, but if the audience doesn’t know….
Back when I shot Play Her Song on the 5D, people were blown away at the beauty of the image projected in a theater. In some ways, I think it looked better on the big screen blown up than it did on my 13″ laptop screen.
Don’t wait for the next greatest. The next greatest camera isn’t going to bring your vision to life any more than the tools you have now.
Point being,
GO SHOOT.
Tim Tebow has taken the front and center spotlight not only in Denver, but around the US. I had the opportunity to work with Fox shooting an interview before the thanksgiving football games, 2011. I was hired as a camera operator, but also fulfilled many roles as the crew was small.
We shot on three Sony F3 cameras with Ultra prime lenses (love that glass) and about 15 lights spread around the Broncos indoor training facility in Denver.
